When Cerise is in my bed, I always turn off the telephone ring tone and let the calls roll over to voice mail. But when I’m by myself, I usually don’t, unless I’m sick or something like that. So the ring tone was operating just fine at three o’clock this morning. “This is Toms Collins,” I answered, “and it’s three a.m. Please state the nature of the overwhelming, extremely important emergency that can’t wait until my regular business hours start at eight.”
“Tom! This is Dave Burnet VI,” a voice on the other end proclaimed, “election strategy, Ron Paul campaign. Remember me?”
Tom: How could I forget? Why did you call me at three in the morning?
Burnet: Hey, don’t sound so grumpy about it. Only very important people get emergency calls at three in the morning.
Tom: Oh yeah? Like who?
Burnet: How about the president of the United States?
Tom: Are you kidding? The President doesn’t take calls in bed, which is where the President had better be at three in the morning, or else face some really tough questions at the next presidential press conference. Some puling, lickspittle EOP flunky takes the call, then sweats bullets, hoping they won’t get fired as they call and wake the White House Chief of Staff’s deputy toady, who shakes in their boots as they wake up the COS’s main butt smooch, who then trembles with apprehension as they wake up the COS, who then pointedly asks what the hell this is all about. And upon being so informed, the COS then invariably says “You mean, those [expletive] have the [expletive] to call up the president of the United States at three in the morning over a chicken [expletive] thing like that?” Then the COS goes back to bed.
Burnet: Really?
Tom: Of course. The only things that ever actually got the President out of bed at three in the morning were credible nuclear strike threats transmitted to the White House from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Burnet: Not even Pearl Harbor?
Tom: It was well after noon on December 7, 1941, when the fumbling Washington bureaucracy finally figured out what was going on, and by then, the President had been up for hours.
Burnet: Oh, I see. But what about that ad? The one with the cute little girl sleeping, all cozy in bed, so sweet and vulnerable and all?
Tom: The Clinton campaign ad that questions whether Barack Obama has the Right Stuff to answer the phone at three in the morning and deal with a crucial international emergency?
Burnet: Yeah, that one.
Tom: Look Dave, it’s a campaign ad, okay? It’s nothing more than a brutish and unsophisticated rip-off of the Johnson campaign’s “Daisy” commercial – the one they used to smear Barry Goldwater.
Burnet: Lyndon Johnson?
Tom: Yeah, that’s right – The Man They Called “El B. J.”
Burnet: And his campaign ran an ad about foreign policy that had a cute little girl in it?
Tom: Uh-huh. There’s this cute little girl in a Sunday school dress, and she’s got a daisy, see, and she’s picking the petals off, but instead of chanting “He loves me, he love me not,” as you might expect, she’s counting numbers from one to ten, but not always in the correct order, see, ‘cause she’s just a cute little girl, you know, and when she says “nine” an anonymous male voice-over starts a rocket countdown. Then suddenly, without warning, the camera zooms in on her big baby eyes, right into the blackness of her pupils, and BOOM – she’s instantly incinerated by a dirty rotten Communist thermonuclear explosion at like, a million degrees Centigrade. Then Johnson speaks in voice-over while you’re watching this mushroom cloud and says “These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark…” and blah, blah, blah.
Burnet: Well, in that case, I can see what you mean, Tom. That Clinton ad is pretty similar in a lot of respects.
Tom: Yeah, but actually, I think it ought to show Hillary asleep in bed.
Burnet: How would that work?
Tom: Oh, okay, she’s lying there in her footie p‘jammies, all snug as a bug, dreaming her little dreamy dream, see, and then the emphatic, invisible narrator says “It’s the White House, it’s 2009, and it’s three a.m. – does she know where her husband is?”
Burnet: You haven’t by any chance suggested that to the Obama campaign, have you?
Tom: Nope.
Burnet: Well, please don’t! We’ve concluded that it will be much easier for Ron to defeat Hillary in the upcoming presidential election than it would be for him to defeat Obama, and I must say, that idea of yours is total dynamite.
Tom: I sort of doubt that there isn’t already something like that on YouTube already, Dave. It’s so obvious – I couldn’t possibly be the only person who’s thought of it.
Burnet: Really?
Tom: Positive. By the way, are you calling me on a cell phone?
Burnet: Yeah.
Tom: And did I just hear you say you’ve concluded that it will be easier for Ron Paul to defeat the Democratic presidential candidate if that person is Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama?
Burnet: You did.
Tom: Then I advise you to have plenty of money ready to pay your next cell phone bill.
Burnet: Why?
Tom: Because the roaming charges for calls made from a parallel universe are absolute murder.
Burnet: I don’t get it.
Tom: You can say that again.
Burnet: I don’t…
Tom: Dave!
Burnet: Yes?
Tom: Why did you call me?
Burnet: Oh, that. It’s about the same thing the Clinton campaign ad was getting at – competence in foreign affairs.
Tom: What, Ron Paul needs more experience in foreign affairs? I can’t imagine why, the guy’s from Texas isn’t he? And doesn’t visiting Mexican whore houses count as experience in “foreign affairs?”
Burnet: Tom, we’ve got a real problem here at the Ron Paul campaign! Please try to take it seriously.
Tom: Okay, so what is it?
Burnet: Ron can’t pronounce the name of that new guy who’s going to take over Putin’s old job.
Tom: You mean, the fellow who’s going to become president of Russia in May when Putin replaces Viktor Zubkov as Prime Minister?
Burnet: Yeah, that guy.
Tom: I assume Ron isn’t having any severe problems with “Dmitry,” is he?
Burnet: No, no, it’s that guy’s last name!
Tom: Hey, why sweat it? Hillary already screwed the pooch on that one. So if Ron ends up running against her, who cares?
Burnet: Tom, I’m sure you will agree that the Ron Paul campaign needs every advantage we can get.
Tom: You can say… Ah, yeah, sure I do.
Burnet: Fortunately, nobody in the media has put Ron on the spot yet with a question requiring an answer involving that man’s name.
Tom: Because nobody in the media is bothering to ask Ron Paul a damn thing these days.
Burnet: Right – but we don’t want to tempt fate by relying on our phenomenal luck forever.
Tom: Oh, Heaven forefend! Haven’t you people examined how the newscasters pronounce it?
Burnet: We sure have, and that’s the other problem I need your help with, Tom. Some of them say “mud-VAY-dev,” some say “muh-vay-DOV,” some say “MED-vuh-dev,” some say “myid-VYED-yiff,” and still others say “muhd-VYED-uhff.”
Tom: And Ron Paul says?
Burnet: I swear by the Virgin of Guadalupe’s Holy Brown Beaner conyo, Tom – Ron can’t pronounce any of them right!
Tom: I see. Well, first of all, the genuine Russian pronunciation is “myid-VYED-yiff.”
Burnet: Goddamnit, Tom, when I heard that one the first time, I thought somebody had grabbed the slider bar and played part of the video backwards!
Tom: Myid… vyed… yiff. Yeah, I can see that – it does sort of sound like English played backwards. So, relative to the others, how did he do on that one?
Burnet: He sounded like Jacov Smirnoff with a harelip.
Tom: Okay, then, here’s what you have to do – get Ron drunk.
Burnet: Drunk?
Tom: That’s right, get him drunk. But I don’t mean Dallas, Texas barbecue drunk, I mean Bethesda, Maryland, wine and cheese party drunk. And to make sure you don’t overdo it, I’m prescribing eight ounces of Cabernet Sauvignon, and not a drop more.
Burnet: But Tom, why does Ron need to be drunk?
Tom: Ask any experienced language teacher – they know all about this – if you’re old enough to drink, you are also so old that your brain is set on a particular collection of phonemes. So, if you want to train an adult Japanese how to pronounce the “L” phoneme, which doesn’t occur in Japanese, you have them drink a few nice, hot cups of sake first, and then start drilling them on “Loudoun’s lousy legal dollar limit at Dulles’ Airline Lounges,” or whatever. You see, Dave, being a Russian word, “Medvedev” contains phonemes that don’t occur in English, plus a couple that do, but are never found with that juxtaposition in English words.
Burnet: So he drinks some wine and practices saying “myid-VYED-yiff” until he gets it right?
Tom: Precisely. The alcohol will relax him just enough so the muscles in his face can form the new phonemes.
Burnet: How long?
Tom: Repeat as necessary until he sounds like a native Moscovite.
Burnet: Okay. But what about when he gives a speech or answers a question at a news conference, and that guy’s name has to be in it? Does he have to be drunk then, too?
Tom: No, he shouldn’t need to – after the brain trains the facial muscles to form the new phoneme, it can be used any time thereafter.
Burnet: Thanks, Tom. We’ll get right on it.
Tom: You’re welcome. I’ll invoice you for this consultation later today.
Burnet: Ah, uh, well… sure, Tom. But don’t send the bill to the Ron Paul campaign.
Tom: Who should I send it to?
Burnet: Oh, yeah… that is… hell, I suppose you should send it to me.
Tom: Will do.
Burnet: Wait!
Tom: What?
Burnet: There’s one other… issue. What if Ron’s problem with this guy’s name is, oh, I don’t know how to put it, exactly, but…
Tom: Subconscious?
Burnet: All right, that’s as good a word as any, I suppose. What if Ron’s problem with this guy’s name is subconscious?
Tom: As in, he hates Russians?
Burnet: As in, he hates foreigners, period.
Tom: Does he?
Burnet: Um, I can’t say. Maybe he subconsciously fears foreign policy and international relations instead?
Tom: You’re asking me? How should I know?
Burnet: Well, he is pretty much an isolationist.
Tom: Look, Dave, if Ron’s going to be President, then he’s going to have to get comfortable with foreigners, their cultures and the various issues they present for America.
Burnet: Couldn’t he just let the Secretary of State take care of that stuff?
Tom: Theoretically, yes; in reality – no.
Burnet: You’re sure?
Tom: Absolutely.
Burnet: So if, in his unconscious mind, he doesn’t want to think about people like Medvedev, then he might not ever be able to pronounce the guy’s name, no matter how long we drill him on it, but if he’s going to be President, then he will have to, eventually, sometime, anyway, say that guy’s name on television.
Tom: Essentially. That guy is going to be president of Russia, after all.
Burnet: But what if Ron just can’t do it?
Tom: In that case, he could fall back on a tried-and-true strategy that’s worked rather well for George W. Bush – the trademark mispronunciation. George did it with that adjective which refers to the part of an atom composed of protons and neutrons – instead of saying “nuclear,” he says “nukuler.” As a matter of fact, over the last seven years or so, “nukuler” has become a sort of code word, uttered by Bush’s sycophants. Then there was JFK, of course, who said “Cuber” instead of “Cuba,” pretending it was a New England accent. Anybody who has lived in New England knows that’s malarkey, though, because nobody in New England pronounces Cuba like that.
Burnet: I understand. What would you suggest?
Tom: How about… “Med-dead?”
Burnet: “Med-dead?”
Tom: Yeah, like in “dead-head,” but with an “on meds” connotation, like the guy is mental case or something. Come to think of it, JFK never pronounced Khrushchev’s name correctly, either, he always called him “Mr. Krew-shev,” sort of like “shiv,” which was juvenile delinquent slang for a switchblade back then, with a “crude” connotation thrown in. So yeah, go for it – if Ron can’t blow everybody away with an authentic Russian rendition of “Medvedev,” have him go with “Med-dead” instead.
Burnet: “Dmitry Med-dead?”
Tom: Tell me that wouldn’t get Ron huge air time.
Burnet: You’re right, Tom, it probably would.
Tom: Okay, then, I’m going back to bed. Call me after eight if anything else comes up.
Burnet: Sure.
Tom: Otherwise, I guess you can call to invite me to Ron’s inauguration.
Burnet: I can’t promise anything, Tom, but I will definitely try to get you on the list.
Tom: Hey, don’t sweat it. ‘Bye.
P.S. Mr. Burnet called me back on March 8, and, to his credit, did so at a respectable hour of the day. His objective was to inform me that Ron Paul was throwing in the towel. When I asked why, Dave explained that, after a futile marathon session of attempting the proper Russian pronunciation of “Medvedev” on Thursday night, Dr. Paul rejected Dave’s proposal of my suggested alternative, saying “The prospect of sounding like George W. Bush or John Kennedy mangling the English language for poltical gain makes me want to puke. If I can’t be President unless I can say this damn Russki’s name, then [expletive] it.”
P.P.S. Dave called again late on Sunday, March 9, to say that Ron changed his mind and intends to hold on to his 21 delegates, go to the Republican convention and raise Hell. “I’ll be incontrol of what I say,” Ron reportedly told Dave, “and nobody can force me to say that [expletive] name, now can they?”